Yes he did stress safety factors both built into materials when spec'ing your project. i.e. a piece of schedule 40 3" tubing has a built in safety factor in its MSDS, and so on.

On the cables he suggested to be careful and be sure not to exceed the recommended safety limits. Example: If all you know is the breaking strength of a given cable do not exceed 20% of that number. so as in my case, I have a compression factor +/- 1500 lbs and I'm using 5/16" cable for guys and 3/8" for lifting cable. The 5/16" 7x19 I'm using has a breaking strength of 9800lbs so I won't exceed 20% of that number or 1960lbs for my guys, and remember I'm using 4 sets of 4 guys so there is a multiple of strength there. And on the lifting cable the 3/8" is rated at a breaking strength of 14400lbs, so, my safety factor for lifting weight (considering compression factor too) is 2880lbs which leaves me well within a very good safety range.

I'm also wondering why, after all I've learned from this Engineering Firm, folks don't consider using square tubing for towers? Just a thought of course, perhaps there's some really good reason for it but the strength factor of square is way higher for a given diameter when compared to an equal diameter of round. Just a thought??

Anyway, I really appreciate your keeping up with this thread, I don't mean to be a bug about it, usually not my style but when you see a reasonably substantial piece of material bend like spaghetti it definitely gets my attention.

If you're interested, I sent you my email address, feel free to use it, would love to chat regarding all this.